Vanessa Ayala
Instructor Dr. Gutierrez
Major Assignment 1
10 October 2016
Women’s Spiritual Interconnection With Nature
Ana Castillo’s novel, So Far From God, chronicles how a Chicano family, its neighbors, and their community confront and overcome the obstacles of racism, poverty, exploitation, environmental pollution, and war in the terrain of New Mexico. Ana Castillo depicts the earth-binding consciousness of Caridad through her intimate, spiritual practices and relationship with nature in which she uses to cope with the problems she is faced with.
After being brutally attacked and mutilated by her predators, Caridad is released from the hospital with wounds that are irreversible. She is prayed for and taken care of by her mother and sister, …show more content…
Doña Felicia’s transfer of curanderismo to Caridad highlights the notion of a healing, matriarchal and spiritual heritage. The older woman teaches Caridad that, “a curandera not only [has] the health of her patient in her own hands but the spirit as well.” The curandera’s earth-binding qualities are exemplified in Doña Felicia‟s advice to Caridad: “Everything we need for healing is found in our natural surroundings” (62). Caridad’s rituals incorporate the practice of natural medicine. Her home-made remedies include a series of herb teas, “rue” to regulate her “moon,” “te de anis for anxiety,” and a daily cup of “romero, the woman 's herb” (64). Stressing the utilization of natural medicine by the women in the home, it is a center of survival, recovery and self-knowledge. Although these women feel the effects of a sexist, racist, and exploitative society, they also manifest the power to heal themselves and their communities through prayer and means of …show more content…
So Far from God: A Novel. New York: W.W. Norton, 1993. Print.
Jacobs, Janet L. "The Effects of Ritual Healing on Female Victims of Abuse: A Study of Empowerment and Transformation." Sociological Analysis 50.3 (1989): 265-79.JSTOR. Web. 05 Oct.
Instructor Dr. Gutierrez
Major Assignment 1
10 October 2016
Women’s Spiritual Interconnection With Nature
Ana Castillo’s novel, So Far From God, chronicles how a Chicano family, its neighbors, and their community confront and overcome the obstacles of racism, poverty, exploitation, environmental pollution, and war in the terrain of New Mexico. Ana Castillo depicts the earth-binding consciousness of Caridad through her intimate, spiritual practices and relationship with nature in which she uses to cope with the problems she is faced with.
After being brutally attacked and mutilated by her predators, Caridad is released from the hospital with wounds that are irreversible. She is prayed for and taken care of by her mother and sister, …show more content…
Doña Felicia’s transfer of curanderismo to Caridad highlights the notion of a healing, matriarchal and spiritual heritage. The older woman teaches Caridad that, “a curandera not only [has] the health of her patient in her own hands but the spirit as well.” The curandera’s earth-binding qualities are exemplified in Doña Felicia‟s advice to Caridad: “Everything we need for healing is found in our natural surroundings” (62). Caridad’s rituals incorporate the practice of natural medicine. Her home-made remedies include a series of herb teas, “rue” to regulate her “moon,” “te de anis for anxiety,” and a daily cup of “romero, the woman 's herb” (64). Stressing the utilization of natural medicine by the women in the home, it is a center of survival, recovery and self-knowledge. Although these women feel the effects of a sexist, racist, and exploitative society, they also manifest the power to heal themselves and their communities through prayer and means of …show more content…
So Far from God: A Novel. New York: W.W. Norton, 1993. Print.
Jacobs, Janet L. "The Effects of Ritual Healing on Female Victims of Abuse: A Study of Empowerment and Transformation." Sociological Analysis 50.3 (1989): 265-79.JSTOR. Web. 05 Oct.